ARTICLES ABOUT NATIONAL CARRIER BY DATE - PAGE 3

NEW DELHI: Air India's website, which went down two days ago after the airline offered a special fare of Rs 100, was apparently blocked by a few sites in India and abroad for a considerable time. An unprecedented 80,000 hits a minute were recorded from some sites which blocked bookings by genuine passengers, the national carrier's Information Technology (IT) team found during internal investigations. The IT team identified at least four sites in India, four in the United States and one in Singapore, which were blocking others from getting into the ticket booking engine, airline sources said.

DUBAI: Airlines in the Gulf region are becoming increasingly cautious of the security situation in strife-torn Iraq and are re-routing their flights to maintain a safe distance from the troubled zone. Bahrain's national carrier, Gulf Air, has announced the re-routing of its European flights to avoid northern Iraqi airspace, as the airline takes further precautions amid growing concerns over the deteriorating security situation. The airline's European flights, which are the only flights to operate over northern Iraqi airspace, will be re-routed effective immediately using alternate, more secure flight paths.

NEW DELHI: Air India's concerns, the prospect of global connectivity and national economic interests were taken into account when the government approved the Jet-Etihad deal, Lok Sabha was informed today. "Primacy of the national carrier has been retained as traffic rights are allocated to other carriers only after considering the operational requirements of Air India ," Minister of State for Civil Aviation GM Siddeshwara said in reply to a question. He said the concerns raised by stakeholders, including Air India, were considered at appropriate forums.

NEW DELHI: National carrier Air India will have to work hard on improving customer satisfaction if it wishes to achieve voting rights in the Star Alliance, the world's largest network of airlines that it joined last month. "We have to achieve 75% of the customer satisfaction plan to be able to fetch voting rights in the Star Alliance," a senior Air India executive said on condition of anonymity. "We are working on it and should be able to achieve it in a year's time. " Air India does not fare well in terms of customer satisfaction ranking on key global airline rating systems.

NEW DELHI: Air India made a loss of Rs 800 crore in the books in the sale of five Boeing 777 aircraft to Etihad Airways as these aircraft had depreciated in the books over 20 years, Lok Sabha was informed today. However, the national carrier generated a surplus of over $ 25 million after prepayment of aircraft loan and saved a further $ five million per month towards loan and interest repayment, Minister of State for Civil Aviation G M Siddeshwara said in reply to a question.

NEW DELHI: Air India has deferred inducting the 16th Dreamliner into its fleet as the aircraft experienced technical trouble during recent test flights in Seattle headquarters of the US manufacturer Boeing. A team of Air India pilots and engineers, which recently conducted the pre-delivery test flights, returned here a few days ago as the brand new plane was sent back to the factory to rectify certain major technical issues, airline officials said. The national carrier, which has ordered 27 of these latest airplanes, currently has 15 of them in its fleet and is expecting deliveries of three more till the year end. Maintaining that the latest aircraft had started giving trouble from the first test flight itself, the officials said Air India would not take its delivery till all problems are corrected.

WITNESS WILDEBEEST MIGRATION REGION: Kenya Natural phenomena occur all over the world but few can compete with the annual Maasai Mara wildebeest migration. The numbers alone are hard to believe,up to two million wildebeest as well as zebra and gazelles move clockwise around this enormous ecosystem,driven by ancient instincts to find fresh grazing and water. ANIMAL INSTINCT — DARE TO BARE: Each year around 1.5 million wildebeest and 300,000 zebra and various species of antelope gather up their young and start their long trek from Tanzania's Serengeti plains to Kenya's Maasai Mara National Reserve.

MUMBAI: National carrier Air India has called a meeting of its two pilot unions in New Delhi tomorrow to discuss various issues, including integration of the unions and salaries, sources said today. The meeting assumes significance as it comes days before Air India formally gets inducted as the 27th member of the global airlines' club, Star Alliance, later this week. "Two pilot unions IPG and ICPA have been called by the management for a high-level meeting at the Airlines House on Monday," sources told PTI here.

SINGAPORE: Celebrating its 60th year of flying to Singapore, Air India is adding another Boeing 787 'Dreamliner' aircraft on its Singapore-Chennai-Mumbai sector from next month. "The Indian national carrier has seen a big increase in passengers on its latest aircrafts from Singapore to India," Country Manager Nirbhik Narang told PTI today. "In June, we had more than 90 per cent passengers on our daily flights from Singapore to India," said Narang, underlining the increase in travellers flying by Air India.

NEW DELHI: Air India will sell and lease back five of its new Dreamliners as part of cost-cutting measures and save substantial sums to pay off the bridge loans it has taken against these aircraft, official sources said. The national carrier has issued a tender inviting bids for the sale and leaseback of five Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners, which were delivered between August 26 last year and January 28 this year, the bid document said. Leaseback, short for sale-and-leaseback, is a financial transaction where one sells an asset and leases it back for the long-term.